Foursquare for iPhone, Android enhanced with new Explore features and menu info

A hungry sojourner should have an easier time tracking down a good meal if updated iPhone and Android applications from Foursquare deliver on their promise to simplify place discovery.

The New York location-based company, currently in the midst of a rebrand, has shipped colorful Explore tab updates to its most popular mobile applications.

The Explore tab, the home of place discovery, now features smarter search capabilities, a new navigation for quick access to top picks … Continue Reading

Foursquare familiarizes the unknown, adds nearby locations to business pages

Foursquare is attempting to make the unfamiliar less mysterious with the addition of familiar nearby places to hundreds of business pages Friday.

Foursquare, the New York-based location check-in startup, gives merchants the ability to operate their own business and brand pages to share tips and connect with customers.

Now, the company is giving businesses a nearby map that collects all of their venues on a map so would-be patrons can find the closest location. If … Continue Reading

Foursquare gets meatier with addition of 13M menu items

Delivering on its promise to make the real world easier to use, location-sharing startup Foursquare has added the menus of nearly 250,000 U.S. restaurants to its service today.

The new menu feature, powered by SinglePlatform, provides members with a detailed look at more than 13 million menu items offered at restaurants, with caloric information and pricing available for some locations.

Menus can be found on the web and at the company’s mobile site – but … Continue Reading

Foursquare’s mobile recommendation engine, Explore, hits the web

Chances are that the insights gathered from one-and-a-half billion check-ins and 15 million tips are better than your own eyes and ears at sleuthing out the best places to eat, drink and see nearby or afar. At least that’s the logic and science behind Foursquare Explore, a popular recommendation feature migrating from mobile to web today.

Foursquare is the New York-based location-sharing startup that popularized the place check-in. But spend a few minutes talking to … Continue Reading

Five tech industry predictions for 2012

The past year in technology was pretty wild.

The really big Internet IPO returned and the massive venture capital funding bubble inflated, which seems difficult considering that the venture capital industry is far smaller than it was three years ago. But look at some of the crazy valuations on revenue-less photo-sharing startups like Color and Path. And there is clearly another bubble inflating in the cloud computing sector, with every company that uses a distributed … Continue Reading

Foursquare’s claim to fame, the check-in, could become its downfall

What is Foursquare? The answer is far more complex than it should be. The startup’s purpose in life is so muddled that it now finds itself in the midst of a self-imposed identity crisis that could cause it to fall victim to Facebook.

“The biggest misconception about Foursquare is that it is a check-in service,” founder Dennis Crowley told me in a recent in-depth interview. “We’re most interested in taking the data from check-ins to … Continue Reading

Google+ check-in offers go live on its Android app

Google recently revealed its social network Google+ will support check-ins for businesses providing discounts through their Google Places page. Today, the capability was launched, but only through the Google+ Android application.

The social network is purposefully getting outfitted with as many Google features as the company can pack into it. Larry Page noted after Google’s quarter three earnings that the Google+ team feels as if it has delivered the “plus,” but is now sewing in … Continue Reading

Google to add local deals to Google+ mobile check-ins (updated)

Update: A Google spokesperson confirmed to VentureBeat that location-based deals will be coming to Google+ next week:

“While prepping for a test of a new check-in offer feature, we published a support center article a little early and have since removed the article. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused. Please stay tuned for roll out of this feature for merchants, which we’re targeting for next week.”

The Google+ social network may be … Continue Reading

Foursquare buttons up the Web, lets you save places for offline discovery

Location-based startup Foursquare has released new features to help make the places you read about on the Web more easily discoverable when you’re out-and-about, wandering the world.

New York-based Foursquare is fast-approaching its third birthday and has been transitioning out of the terrible twos by reminding users that it’s more than just a check-in-and-forget-it location-based app. To that end, the company has revamped its website, introduced a slew of new expertise badges and added a … Continue Reading

Hold onto your mustache! Foursquare gets Scoutmob location-based deals

Two great mobile apps have gotten together to make deal-hunting and city exploration an even better experience, as Foursquare has integrated Scoutmob deals.

Scoutmob is a deals app for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry that lets users claim deals only once they’ve reached a destination. Two things make Scoutmob distinctive: One, customers don’t pay Scoutmob to get these deals, they just press a button and receive the deal as an e-mail coupon; and two, the designers … Continue Reading

Foursquare finally makes its website as cool as its mobile apps

Location service Foursquare is showing off its new coat of paint. The company today unveiled a website redesign with a whole new experience for people sitting at their desks. What started as a check-in game all of a sudden seems a lot more like a formidable business in the making.

The fun of Foursquare has long been the ability to check in at destinations using a mobile phone and share location information with friends, but … Continue Reading

Foursquare starts leveling-up expertise badges

Foursquare is updating the functionality of its “expertise badges” to make a user’s history of check-ins a better representation of real-life experiences, the company announced today.

Foursquare users can obtain expertise badges by checking in multiple times to several different venues in the same category. For instance, if you check in to five different pizza places in the same area, you’d get an expertise badge for eating pizza. Those badges are then displayed in a … Continue Reading

With $1.5 million investment Google Ventures thinks Milk will make a splash

Google Ventures has invested $1.5 million into mobile application development studio Milk, the new project from Digg co-founder Kevin Rose. The investment is both strategic and pragmatic, and will help the startup to build out its team with top talent — an area where Google has always been strong.

“It’s been nice to able to ping them when we have certain questions, and to tap into the vast amount of experience they’ve had when building … Continue Reading

How Foursquare is moving beyond the check-in

“We want to build tools that change the way all the people in this room experience the real world,” said Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley at the Web 2.0 Summit today, as he described his company’s retreat from the game mechanics that first made the check-in service a success.

With more than 10 million downloads, Foursquare is the category leader for location services, even as it moves away from its initial offering. Crowley said Foursquare is … Continue Reading

Foursquare Radar on iOS5 automatically finds cool things to do

Location-based check-in service Foursquare released a new version of its iPhone app today that adds a new feature called Radar, which takes full advantage of the latest version of Apple’s iOS 5 update.

Using iOS 5′s new region monitoring functionality, the Radar feature sends alerts to users about things they are interested in whenever they are physically near the area. For instance, if a group of your friends are at the bar next door to … Continue Reading

Foursquare revises checking-in at home addresses (again)

Location-based check-in service Foursquare today revised how it handles people who choose to check-in at their home or other personal addresses (say, grandma’s house).

The revision enhances the privacy of Foursquare users who want to share their locations at all times.

“A lot of people love checking in to their homes on foursquare. They want to be Mayor of their house, or they may want their friends to know they made it home safe after … Continue Reading

Foursquare celebrates one billion check-ins with updated mobile apps

You know what’s cooler than a million check-ins? A billion. Popular location-based check-in location service Foursquare today announced on its blog that it has reached one billion check-ins, as well as launched updated versions of its popular iPhone and Android apps.

Check-in growth on Foursquare has nearly tripled in a year, going from around 200 million in July 2010 to almost 750 million in June 2011. The company claims the one billionth check-in occurred … Continue Reading

Foursquare finally lets you keep home addresses private

Location-based social network Foursquare has quietly added the incredibly welcome ability to hide home addresses to its privacy features.

One of the biggest problems I’ve always had when scanning my friends’ Foursqaure check-ins has been seeing people checking in at their homes. While theoretically you’re sharing with just friends, surely there are at least a few people you’d prefer not to show off their exact address. Furthermore, many people who are the “mayor” of their … Continue Reading